


The Web

by souberbielle



Category: Notre-Dame de Paris | The Hunchback of Notre-Dame - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Gen, Mentions of past (canon) underage noncon, Mentions of past (canon) violence, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:20:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26813539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/souberbielle/pseuds/souberbielle
Summary: After their deaths in 1482, Claude Frollo and Esmeralda find themselves reincarnated in the modern era, old memories intact. Not knowing each other's true identities, they forge a friendship over e-mail. They've never met face to face... until now.
Relationships: Esméralda | Esmeralda & Claude Frollo, Esméralda | Esmeralda/Claude Frollo
Comments: 14
Kudos: 38





	1. Appearances

_La Esmeralda._ That was his first thought, and he hated himself for it.

When Claude looked at the photographs again, the differences were clear. This young woman was taller and leaner than the dancer who'd been the ruin of his first life, her brows more arched, her skin lighter. Esmeralda's hair had been longer, wilder, and black as the depths of space, an expanse in which a man might drift forever. The girl in the pictures had black hair as well, but it fell to her shoulders in neat, glossy waves and was strewn with streaks of honey brown. Claude's memory had always been exceptional, and he could still, unfortunately, picture the object of his old obsession perfectly. Her lips had never been this pink, her earlobes had been unadorned and perfect, and she didn't smile that way. On that last point alone, he was uncertain. Claude Frollo had little experience with la Esmeralda's smile.

He frowned and tried to force away the thought of the young girl he had destroyed, and who had destroyed him in turn. No, he corrected the thought, she had not destroyed him; he had destroyed himself over her. He could not afford to slip back into his old way of thinking now. Claude was no longer the man he'd been when he died in 1482, but he knew it was only diligent self-control that kept him from returning to such a state. That was why he usually kept himself distant from women, even in the absence of priestly vows – he could not be trusted around them. La Esmeralda had not deserved the monster he had been to her. No woman did. Aggie least of all.

It was a friendship that could only have been possible in the modern age. Five years had passed since Claude had gotten his first e-mail from Agnes Guiberto. It was a simple message of appreciation for a paper he'd written on 15th century witchcraft trials and a request for suggestions for further reading on the topic. She said she was an American student and apologized for her shoddy French - though it was quite good aside from the spelling and, Claude had been amused to note, a few structural quirks she'd clearly picked up from medieval texts. He hadn't been much help since most of the primary sources she was interested in were located in France and not available online, the other papers he wanted to recommend were locked behind paywalls, and he could hardly give her access to his personal experience. Still, they continued to correspond, the discussion turning from academia’s problem with exclusivity and inaccessibility – and here he remembered Pierre Gringoire – to manuscripts and cotehardies. He encouraged her to learn Latin and Greek, and they bemoaned the misrepresentation of medieval life in popular culture. Aggie, as he came to know her, had an intuitive understanding of the mindset of the Middle Ages and an esteem for the things that were trampled in the march of progress. It frustrated him immensely, therefore, to find that she did not intend to pursue a career as a historian. Instead, she aspired to musical theatre. Why was it, Claude wondered, thinking again of Pierre Gringoire, that so many promising scholars were enticed by the stage? But he was neither Aggie’s guardian nor her teacher, so he held his peace. All the same, it was a loss.

Eventually their conversations moved beyond the intellectual and touched on their own lives. Aggie was younger than Claude had thought – he'd imagined a university student, but it turned out she was not much older than Jehan had been. She lived in the state of Illinois, but her grandparents had been Colombian immigrants, and Aggie grew up speaking both English and Spanish. She had no shame in describing her upbringing by a single mother who didn’t even know who had fathered her child. She loved animals, but could not convince her mother to let her get a pet, though she’d petitioned for everything from a parrot to a skunk.

Claude’s own cat, Nicodemus, was stretched out on the top of the armchair, pressed against the back of his neck like a sable collar. Nico had benefited from Aggie’s knowledge, as she made suggestions for his enrichment and training. Taking him out on a leash had been her idea, and she was the reason he could come, sit, lie down, and meow on command.

Aggie had a quick mind and a playful spirit – and she brought out the playfulness in Claude, in a way that only Jehan used to. He knew his nature could be rigid and somber and made an effort to loosen and lighten up, that he might avoid being driven to the same dismal end as before. His conversations with Aggie were where he found the most success.

She wasn’t religious – or at least she wasn’t Christian. Her mother had secured her baptism and raised her in the Catholic faith, but Aggie had alluded to bad experiences with the Church and now considered herself a deist, something like a Hindu. He fervently hoped she’d find her way back to salvation in time, but he reminded himself he was no longer a priest and did his best not to press her.

Despite her spiritual shortcomings, she did appreciate and acknowledge the significance of all things – that the marvels and laws of the natural world were infused with spiritual truths. This was an understanding Claude found sorely lacking in modern science. He and Aggie had a sort of game, born out of a discussion of old bestiaries, where she would send him peculiarities of animal behavior and he would explain the moral lesson in it. They shared the awareness that nothing was an accident. And Claude felt sure that he and Agnes Guiberto had been placed in each other’s paths for the betterment of them both.

With Aggie, he could relax, even joke. There was an ease between them he had not known since Jehan and Quasimodo were small. That this friend was a young woman – a beautiful young woman, as it turned out – was entirely foreign in his experience, but drained of its venom over e-mail. It was a closeness made possible by the distance between them. He prayed it would survive a year spent in the same city.

He’d identified a few eateries that might appeal to her tastes and some places to show her. But what would a vibrant young woman desire from Paris? Would she find Claude suitable company? He hoped she would not take offense if he declined to ascend the Eiffel Tower with her. Since his death, a newfound phobia of heights had kept him firmly earthbound. But, if he shared that vulnerability, perhaps she would understand. Aggie had her own traumas and triggers, he knew. She hadn’t gone into detail and Claude hadn’t asked. It was probably better he didn’t know. He didn’t trust himself not to track down and confront whoever had hurt her.

He felt he knew her so well, yet he had never seen her face until today.

Claude’s hand shook slightly as he set down his phone, the screen still displaying the pictures she’d sent so he could recognize her when they met. His legs were leaden, his stomach churned, and his heartbeat throbbed in his ears. He murmured a prayer of gratitude for the warning he’d been granted. Agnes truly did look dangerously like la Esmeralda. Seeing her for the first time in person could have been catastrophic. This way, he had time to sort through these feelings and regain mastery of himself before they met face to face.

He supposed he should send her a picture of himself in return. Presumably she’d already found his professional photo on Google, but that was from back when he still had a full head of hair, and his smile was unnatural. Claude had to admit it didn't look much like him. Unless he sent her an updated picture, Aggie would likely struggle to pick him out of a crowd. Yet he was reluctant. That Claude would be a disappointment to her felt increasingly certain, and he was not eager to hasten the inevitable.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of church bells. Behind him, Nico let out a long meow of complaint. Claude pulled out his phone and dismissed the alarm. He needed to leave in the next few minutes to make the appointment on time. Lanh Luong had been his coworker and often research partner for years. In addition to being the closest Claude had to a friend, he was currently head of the university’s history department. They were meeting today to go over his next grant application. There would be time to dwell on his past failures and future ordeals later. Now he needed to take a picture for Aggie and get to his appointment.

He shrugged off his robe and straightened his collar, then drew out his phone to take a picture. Nico climbed onto his shoulder and extended a paw to bat at the device, so Claude moved it out of his reach. Rather than admit defeat, the cat followed the phone, stepping up onto Claude’s head to get closer “ _Descende, Nico_ ,” the man sighed. He carefully raised a hand up to shoo him off, not daring to move his head lest he receive a scalping from a startled cat. Ever contrary, Nicodemus elected to settle down on his perch instead. “ _Bestia molestans_ ,” Claude grumbled, but he was smiling, and he gave Nico a scratch behind the ears. Amused, he snapped a picture before nudging the cat more insistently back onto the armchair.

Claude stood up and moved out of cat range, preparing to take a proper picture. But he stopped and glanced at the last picture. It was admittedly less than dignified but his features were clearly visible. And, with a cat covering his head, there was no indication of his receding hairline. He chided himself for vanity and took another shot.

In the end, he used the Nico picture anyway. The moment he hit ‘send’ he wished he hadn’t. She would think him half a fool. After a moment, he muttered, “Might as well make it a whole fool,” and sent a follow-up message: _Do you like my hat?_

Well, the die was cast. He could only hope Aggie would find it endearing rather than inane.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does Claude speak to his cat in Latin? Of course he does.  
> Descende, Nico - get down, Nico  
> Bestia molestans - troublesome beast
> 
> I've never posted anything on AO3 before, so please let me know if I'm not using the tags/ratings/classifications correctly. Thanks for reading!


	2. Approaches

Agnes Guiberto had never been to France before, but Esmeralda was coming home.

She traced the ridges of the airplane window with her finger as she gazed out into the clouds. Joel was supposed to have gotten the window seat for the first portion of this flight, but he had gotten queasy during takeoff, and they had switched places as soon as the seatbelt light went off. Melissa had been flying on planes her whole life and charitably left the window to the two newbies. She said there was nothing exciting about it anymore. This view was Aggie’s for the rest of the journey, and she didn’t understand how anyone could ever get bored with it.

She drank some water, trying to rid her mouth of the taste of the grape-flavored hard candy she’d sucked on during takeoff. The flavor was revolting, but the taste was better than the earache and disorientation Melissa said she’d get if she didn’t do it. Aggie was grateful for the advice, but made a note to buy herself something more palatable for the return trip.

She pulled up Claude’s picture again on her phone. Looking at his face was unsettling and uncomfortable, and her eyes seemed reluctant to linger on him. It was much easier to focus on Nicodemus, who looked very handsome with his pear green eyes and dark stripes and had an air of dignity and refinement even while haphazardly plunked on his owner’s head.

Joel leaned across Melissa to look at the photo. “So that’s the professor, huh? Nice cat. Do you think he feeds his victims to it?”

“Of course not,” Aggie shot back, with a grin. “That would completely ruin his diet. Cats can’t have that much fat.”

Joel stroked his beard thoughtfully. “He wouldn’t feed it to him all at once, then. It’s like Sweeney Todd, only he bakes them into cat treats.” After a pause, he sang softly, “ _I mean, with the price of meat what it is, when you get it_ –“

Aggie would have taken the bait and joined in, but Melissa interrupted. “No! We are not doing this. If you start singing, we all will, and the whole plane will hate us. They’ll stab us to death with their plastic silverware.”

Joel heaved a dramatic sigh, but he did, in fact, stop singing.

When she’d first told him about Claude, Joel had teased her about having a ‘secret boyfriend,’ but he’d stopped when he realized it actually bothered her. Joel was good about things like that. Just like how he’d only chided her once about ignoring the seatbelt light before dropping it. He didn’t even ask why she didn’t like straps around her waist, just accepted it.

Of course, he hadn’t stopped teasing her about Claude altogether; he’d simply switched to the serial killer jokes. Aggie didn’t really mind these, though she still feigned offense. The thought of her historian pen pal killing anyone was ludicrous – and besides, Esmeralda had known her share of real murderers and gotten on with them well enough. She imagined introducing Joel to Clopin Trouillefou, and smiled.

Meanwhile, Joel had started up again. “But really, Aggie, you didn’t tell me he was a – hmm, what’s the male equivalent of a crazy cat lady? Cat gentleman?”

“Cat lord,” suggested Melissa, and the other two laughed appreciatively.

It was still very strange to Aggie, having actual friends. In her first life, she’d struggled to connect with anyone. She could please a crowd, but casual interactions had different rules, and Esmeralda was slow to learn them. Even in her own tribe, she’d always felt isolated. It often seemed to her that Djali was easier to understand than her own species. If anything, she’d been worse in her second life. The social rules she’d learned in her sixteen years in medieval France didn’t carry over to high school in the 21st century United States. And her trauma made her even more nervous around people; being thrown into a panic by a simple game of hangman or a joke about pedophile priests didn’t help either.

She’d seized at the chance to befriend Dr. Frollo with an eagerness that was almost embarrassing. It was much easier to communicate over e-mail, where she had time to think out her responses, and where she didn’t have to worry about making the right facial expressions, interpreting body language, or not spacing out at every mention of one of her triggers. Not that Claude himself wasn’t a factor. He didn’t patronize her, despite her age and his position, and he was unfazed by her out-of-nowhere questions. And as a medievalist, he understood things no one else in this modern world could relate to.

But outside of her computer screen, she was still alone. Then, in college, her luck finally changed. Whether she’d learned enough in acting classes to pass as a normal person or whether the school’s theatre program just attracted like-minded people who didn’t mind oddballs, she finally found a group of friends. First it was just Emily, but through Emily she met Joel and Roman, and through Roman she met Nathaniel and Aneesha, and then she brought Mikaela into the circle all on her own! For the first time since Djali, she had someone to share her meals and thoughts with.

Aggie and Joel had signed up for a year abroad in Paris together so that, whatever happened, they could be sure of at least one friendly face. They’d met Melissa O’Rourke, who had signed up for the same program, and she’d turned out to be pleasant company too. Mel, an experienced world traveler, had booked them all the same flights together.

As it so often did, the conversation had come around to things they could do in Paris. Mel was trying to convince Joel to agree to try escargot with her. He was noncommittal, so she turned to Aggie. “How about you, Ags? Snails?”

Aggie shrugged and turned back to the window. Esmeralda had never eaten a snail. Her memories of Paris were devoid of crème brûlée, croissants, chocolates, or frog legs. Instead, her nostalgia was for honey cakes and pottage, buying meat pies and cheese fritters from vendors on the street, and joining her tribe for stuffed cabbage and clay-baked chicken back home.

Her unease grew as her friends listed places they were excited to visit – the Eiffel Tower, Versailles, the Champs-Élysées, the Arc de Triomphe, the Opera House – nothing she’d seen, nothing she’d known. The Louvre that Melissa spoke of had nothing in common with the old fortress of Esmeralda’s Paris. Of everything they mentioned, only the cathedral of Notre Dame was familiar to Aggie – and she was not at all certain she was ready to go back there again. Anxiously, she twisted the fabric of her skirt in her fingers, hoping she would not find this modern France as foreign as it sounded.

After the conversation petered out, Melissa donned an eye mask and neck pillow and went to sleep. Joel soon followed suit, burying his face in his crossed arms on the tray table. Aggie had planned to stay awake anyway, to better adjust to the new time zone, but she couldn’t have quieted her buzzing mind if she’d wanted to. She was already feeling trapped, boxed in against the wall, unable to stretch her legs or be sure of an escape route. Her window view was no longer so thrilling, with nothing but endless ocean beneath a darkening sky. Something about all that dark, hungry water unsettled her stomach and shortened her breath, so she pulled down the shade.

She tried to distract herself, keep her mind from wandering into the worst corners of her memory, keep her body from springing out of the seat and shoving past her sleeping friends, needing to move, to run, to dance. She unbraided her hair, combed it out, and put it up again in a complex arrangement of plaits. She spun her lucky ladybug earrings in nervous circles, took them out, put them back in again. She began to sing quietly, but a sharp hiss from a passenger behind her forced to stop.

A flight attendant came by with a cart, offering dinner. She stopped to ask Aggie what she wanted, but Aggie didn’t think she could keep anything down. When she didn’t get a response, the stewardess leaned over Joel’s massive sleeping form to ask again, this time in English. Aggie stayed silent, but the woman refused to move on. She continued to repeat her question until Aggie finally snapped at her.

When the flight attendant finally left her alone, Aggie set herself to distraction again, nibbling her upper lip, rolling her chapstick against her palms, rubbing the fabric of her skirt between her fingers. After a while, it occurred to her that she should perhaps have asked for meals for Joel and Melissa, or maybe waken them to see if they wanted to eat. It was too late now, anyway. She raised the window shade to see if they were back over land yet, but it was now completely dark, and she slammed it shut again. Since her time in the oubliette, she couldn’t even sleep without a light on. The thought of being suspended in the air, enveloped by total darkness… Aggie felt her skin crawl. The low light and cramped conditions inside the plane now seemed even less bearable than before.

Desperate for some light, she pulled her phone out. The picture of Claude and Nico was still open, and this time she made herself look at the man’s face. It was better than the dark. Claude had sent her many pictures of Nicodemus before, but none of himself. From what she could see under the cat, his hair was brown and fell just past his ears. He had deep-set hazel eyes, a tidy mustache – and the sort of sharp features that made Aggie’s skin crawl. Her unease wasn’t Claude’s fault, she knew, any more than it was the fault of her senior year science teacher or Nathaniel’s father or any of the other men with similar faces who’d set her off over the years. It was the priest, still haunting her across time and space. She swore she wouldn’t let herself be unnerved by Claude Frollo, wouldn’t let her past get in the way of their friendship. Aggie laughed shakily. What was there to fear from a man who accessorized his blue button-up shirt with a feline hat? The only thing bothering her was their age difference. Of course she had known he was older, but it was different actually seeing it. She only hoped it wouldn’t hinder their rapport in person, and that Claude wouldn’t find her immature and socially inept.

Aggie drank the last of her water and tried to eat a little of the food she’d brought, but she could only manage a handful of raisins. The rest she gave to Joel and Melissa when they woke up and grumbled that they’d missed the meal service. Even with human company and the overhead lights back on, Aggie’s disquiet lingered. She stretched as much as she could in the cramped space, rolling her neck and pointing her toes; she reached her fingers down her calf to the place she usually carried her knife. A blade couldn’t protect her from the dark or her doubts, but she still would have felt safer knowing it was there. She cursed the security regulations that had forced her to leave both knife and holster in her suitcase.

When the pilot announced they were starting their approach to Paris, Aggie raised the window shade again.

The city below looked like a circuit board, copper wires of streets punctuated by clusters of white, green, or yellow buildings and squares. It was enchanting, but utterly alien. There was nothing of the Paris she had known in that network of lights. As they came closer to the ground, the lines broke into spots of light like droplets of dew glistening on a spiderweb. None of it was familiar to her, yet the jolt of the plane’s wheels touching the ground sent a rush of elation through her like an electric shock. She was home. This time, she was entering Paris not orphaned and untried, but with a purpose in mind and friends both beside her and awaiting her.

This time, things would be different.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for staying with me through two solid chapters of people sitting in chairs! I promise things will happen in this fic eventually. xD


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